GIGA 86mm – Deployment charge tests
Ground testing of the deployment charges of the 86mm minimum diameter GIGA rocket. “Test what you fly, fly what you test”.
Author Archives: JVDB
GIGA 86mm – Camera shroud Mobius Mini
A 3D printer camera shroud for the Mobius Mini was ordered from Additive Aerospace. However upon closer inspection I noticed the design could be optimized a bit for the GIGA rocket being: The Additive Aerospace camera shroud used four screws positioned in a square to secure the shroud to the airframe. This is particularly hard to
GIGA 86mm – Electronics bay
Pull pin Consisting of two-piece pin where as one part can remain in the rocket during preparations and a second part containing the “remove before flight” tag can be screwed on/off during assembly. With the Intimidator 5 we noticed that a protruding pull pin, especially in combination with parts / coupler pieces which need to slide into each other,
GIGA 86mm – goodies
I have been busy with the electronics or avionics bay. I find it one of the hardest components to design properly so little physical progress to report. However I want to share the following picture of goodies I received over the last week. From left to right: Electronics bay update with preliminary routing of the cables.
86mm KILO 12G “lite” motor – graphite nozzle
Need a good reason to thoroughly clean your lathe? Try machining some graphite. A good shop vacuum cleaner such as a wet /dry Karcher helped a lot in keeping the mess to a minimum. However it showed over time that it was unavoidable that, after machining a full graphite nozzle, the entire lathe was covered in graphite particles. I had
86mm KILO 12G “lite” motor – nozzle retainer
One week, one part. The nozzle retainer will hold the full graphite nozzle in place. It is a variation on the simplest form of a retaining ring as used earlier on the KILO 6G motor. The variation consists of: the nozzle retainer has a divergent section where it lengthens the actual divergent section of the
86mm KILO 12G “lite” motor – casing
Finished the casing today. It is 1780mm long and will hold 12 BATES grains. Important factor in long rockets is that all parts being properly aligned. To facilitate this all the tubes (casing, airframe & nose cone) rest on square faces. As I didn’t want to rely on the squareness of the band saw cut I had
GIGA rocket – Introduction
After having loads of fun with the Wildman – Intimidator 5 it is time for a new experimental rocket. A minimum diameter rocket for some serious altitude. Based on the very succesful KILO 6G motor with a higher total impulse, more grains and updated with a light weight 86x3mm motor casing. Rocket will be made “sustainer-ready” similar like de DECA
86mm KILO 12G “lite” motor – coupler / retainer
Finished the combined retainer ring / coupler for the KILO 12G “lite” motor. The coupler was made from 80x5mm tube and almost a direct fit into the 86x3mm casing. It is a bit beefy. However lets first see how she copes with the 96bar MEOP and the countersinking of the 86x3mm casing which will probably extend into the retaining ring / coupler
GIGA 86mm 5:1 Von Karman nose cone – machining and finishing
During machine it was noticed that the wet lay up has, as large as 1mm, eccentricity. Even when the alignment jig was used to center the 3D printed plugs in line. Hence, up to 2mm extra outer diameter needed to be laminated so any eccentricity can be removed during the final machining stage. A stepped